We hear a lot from publishers about how libraries, by providing eBooks, are some how causing publishers to lose money. Richard Mollet, the CEO of the Publishers Association (who is a very nice chap actually, and I had the pleasure of debating with him a while ago) is on record as saying "the nub of the problem with e-lending is that we have to be sure publishers can have a sustainable business model because when it is as easy to buy a book as to click a button and borrow one, a lot more people are going to take the borrowing option and that has serious implications for authors and their royalties, for booksellers and as well for publishers."
The publishers come across as the wounded party, with the libraries being the bad guys. However, please tell that to people who have spent money with JManga. This is the streaming site of the Japanese Digital Comics Association, and it's about to stop selling Manga. As of the 30th May the manga that people have purchased will become unavailable. There is also no way of storing or saving what users have purchased. It will just be gone. Unused purchase points will be transferred to Amazon vouchers, but the stuff that people have bought - well, that's just disappeared for good.
What's the answer? Well, it's rather unpalatable but you have to steal it. That is to say, steal your own stuff, the stuff that you've legally bought and paid for, by stripping the DRM off it. The comic from xkcd says it all quite nicely:
It's an insane situation, and it's not caused by libraries, authors or readers - it's caused by publishers. In fact, libraries REDUCE piracy, they don't increase it.
Excellent points, I totally agree (and I'm a content creator/owner!) If something has DRM then it is a rental, and you should only pay rental prices. If I pay full price then I want a copy to keep forever. This is a common topic on my blog e.g. http://karldrinkwater.blogspot.com/2012/05/e-book-lending-and-libraries.html and http://karldrinkwater.blogspot.com/2012/01/would-you-like-your-e-books-with-or.html. I think the consumer is being ripped off whenever DRM is foisted upon them. Thanks for covering yet another DRM disaster.
Posted by: Karl Drinkwater | March 21, 2013 at 05:49 PM